We Decided to Save Them

(Photo: Yad Vashem)

April 13, 2016
By Stand for Israel

The Tashchiyan Family

Why you should know them: The Tashchiyans were an Armenian family who saved a Jewish family from the Nazis.

Grigori and Pran Tashchiyan lived in Turkey during World War I, surviving the Armenian genocide. Pran's first husband, their two children, and most of their relatives were not so lucky, and were murdered by the Turks. After WWI, Grigori and Pran were married and settled in Crimea. There, they had neighbors of all different ethnicities, including the Jewish Goldberg family.

When World War II began, the Jewish family's father, David, was conscripted into the Soviet army. Shortly afterward, the Nazis overran the Crimean town where the Tashchiyans and Goldbergs lived and began to murder the Jews.

To save the Goldbergs' two children, six-year-old Anatoliy and three-year-old Rita, Pran Tashchiyan opened her home to them. The house was surrounded by a wall, a locked gate, and guarded by dogs. From 1942 until 1944, the Goldberg children hid in the Tashchiyan family's home, taking shelter in the cellar, the attic, or the dogs' kennel whenever Nazis came near. The two children's lives were saved.

After the war, the Soviets forced the Armenian Tashchiyan family out of their home, and persecuted them for many years. But it was this persecution - because of who they were, and because of their people's treatment during the First World War - that caused the Tashchiyan family to risk their own lives to save the lives of two Jewish children, children they continued to stay in contact with through the years.

In 2002, the Tashchiyan family was named Righteous Among the Nations, and Pran's daughter told Yad Vashem that her mother explained why she had performed this deed: "Having witnessed the Armenian Genocide, we decided to save them."

For elderly Jews like Tatiana in the far reaches of the former Soviet Union, the harsh winter months threaten their very survival. You can help provide winter relief essentials like heating fuel and warm clothing as well as food and medicine to an elderly widow who has no one else to care for her.

Here you’ll find an array of useful information on accommodations, transportation, exchanging currency, Israel's climate and customs, and much more. So get the most out of your trip to Israel with the help of The Fellowship.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) funds humanitarian aid to the needy in Israel and in Jewish communities around the world, promotes prayer and advocacy on behalf of the Jewish state, and provides resources that help build bridges of understanding between Christians and Jews.